Suspect arrested in JonBenet Ramsey slaying

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Eyewitness News' Jim Dolan

(New York - WABC, August 16, 2006) -- Authorities say 41-year-old John Mark Karr, a former schoolteacher, was arrested in Thailand and charged in the slaying of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. Her killing a decade ago shocked the nation and became one of the most notorious unsolved murder cases.

Sources say Karr confessed to elements of the killing of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey when he was arrested at his home in Thailand.

He will be brought back to the U.S. and charged in connection with the bizarre and troubling murder and sexual assault -- and it won't be the first time he is charged with a sex crime against a child.

Sources tell ABC News that Karr wrote e-mails to a journalist in Colorado that contained accurate information about the case that only the killer could have known.

At just six-years-old, her rich, Boulder, Colorado parents had her compete in pre-adolescent beauty pageants. But on Christmas Day in 1996, after returning from a party at a family friend's home, she was murdered and possibly sexually assaulted. Her body was found days later inside the home, bound and gagged with duct tape and strangled with a thin wire rope.

No one was arrested, and the Boulder Police were accused of botching the investigation. In the tabloids and elsewhere, attention focused on the parents, who many believed were not appropriately emotional after the murder of their only daughter.

Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood said the Ramseys learned about the suspect a least a month before Patsy Ramsey died. "It's been a very long 10 years, and I'm just sorry Patsy isn't here for me to hug her neck," Wood said.

Karr was arrested in 2001 in Sonoma County, California for possession of child pornography. He's still wanted there because he didn't show up for court. And, he was suspended from his job as a second grade teacher in California because he'd been charged with the commission of a sex offense and was suspected of an act of moral turpitude.

On Wednesday night, a family spokesperson reacted to the arrest: "The diligent investigation of JonBenet Ramsey's murder by Boulder District Attorney and detectives that have been working with her have been extraordinary. It is our hope that this arrest will bring some closure to the Ramsey family after a ten year ordeal. We respect the legal process and will no have further comment about the case until the process is concluded."

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